Billionaire plans few changes for 3,000 acres on Kauai

Plans for the nearly 3,000 acres of Kauai agricultural land recently purchased by Tennessee billionaire Brad Kelley, one of the largest private landowners in the United States, call for keeping it predominately the way it is, the president of Kelley’s real estate holding and development company told PBN.

Bill Murphree, president of Kentucky-based Cumberland and Western Resources LLC, speaking to the media for the first time since Kelley’s purchase of the land from Lihue-based landowner Grove Farm Co. closed, says that there is no plan to develop the acreage in Puhi just past Kipu Ranch into any hotel or tourism-based businesses.

“We don’t have any big changes,” he said. “In time, there will be some job opportunities. We are very sensitive about the land and take our responsibility of being stewards of the land very seriously.”

Murphree, who also noted that the lessees of its newly-purchased land will be very happy and pleased in having it as a neighbor, said that this is the company’s first land purchase in the state.

“We have been interested in Hawaii, in general, for a long time,” he said. “We visited Kauai many years ago [and] we just loved it and saw that it was a beautiful place, [and although] all of Hawaii is beautiful, Kauai is unique and different for the other islands. There wasn’t any big strategy that led us there.”

Murphree declined to give specifics into what ag-related ventures are on tap, only to say that it has some things that will be interesting, including maybe developing a ranch house.

“We want to go out and meet with the lessees [and] we want to try to understand the details of those leases and meet the people involved,” he said. “We will have to look at each one individually and see what it means and involves. If we did anything that involved these leases, it would involve time.”

PBN first reported that Kelley purchased the agricultural lands on Kauai. The price was close to $10 million, according to public records.

Kelley’s massive landholdings, mostly pasture lands, amount to about 1,600 square miles, more than the entire land area of Rhode Island and not that much less than the state of Delaware.

The 57-year-old Kentucky native, who has a net worth of $2 billion and is ranked at No. 273 on the Forbes 400 list, gained such wealth by starting discount cigarette brands Bull Durham and USA Gold, eventually selling the business for $1 billion in 2001.